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Hibs fans won't thank me for saying this, but Hearts could be set to break the Old Firm duopoly of coming first and second in the SPL.

That would be a great thing, in my opinion, and would give our game a huge boost.

Before Old Firm fans get up in arms, this is not a knocking job on them, but a fervently desired hope for some serious competition in .

Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown have been round the block and know how difficult mounting a challenge to split Scotland's two powerbrokers will be.

But if anyone can do it, the Jam Tarts can.

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We've seen the excitement that play-offs generate in England. Now we could be about to see the same in Scotland, both at the top and the bottom of any new top league set up.

for radical change to give the game a lift by clubs who don't think recent proposals are radical enough.

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The creation of SPL 1 and 2 two is being hailed as .

Here's my message to the SPL: good start, but now let's get really radical.

You want to shake the game up, get more competition, bring crowds and atmosphere back to our dying game?

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Craig Brown once told me the story of his first teaching job in a tough primary school.

Answering a loud chapping on the classroom door, he opened it to be immediately punched in the face by an irate father.

, though, was no shrinking violet and the hasty father had cause to regret his .

That tale should not be lost on the Pittodrie dressing room.

Brown is no mug and will not be taken for one by anybody.

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Recreation Park was a postcard-perfect picture for .

An oasis of green, well, not grass, but a high-tech synthetic surface, loomed lush and verdant against a backdrop of the towering white mass of the .

With 500 tons of shovelled snow cleared by hand and by tractor, piled around the pitch perimeter, the proceedings had a winter wonderland feel about them.

The Wasps chairman, Mike Mulraney, had insisted to a sceptical nation that he would get the game played and .

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